OT: MacBook randomly shuts down..

[Jeff Reynolds]

I just had my third desktop dell in 6 years die. each died at almost  
exactly two years! almost feels like a timer is built in. all middle  
of the road dells with light use bought new directly from dell.

this last time i did extend the warrantee to two years on a rebate  
deal, but I forgot about it. when i was diagnosing the problem with  
dell support and we finally determined it was a dead mother board  
they said it would be $500-600 to replace. i said forget it. I had  
forgotten about the extended care i had gotten. next week i get a  
letter asking if i want to re up the extended care for another year.  
the bums did not tell me when i was doing the diagnosis that i was  
eligible for free repair! This was all Dells direct stuff, not a  
third party. you would expect they would know what i had after all  
the info i had to have their tech support even look at the machine at  
almost two years in... I had just sent the machine off to the  
recycling center...

bottom line is thats the last pc coming in here, decided to just  
upgrade to an intel mac pro and get both worlds in one. after some  
dozen odd apples over the years i have never had one die or even have  
any serious problems (even with having a cup of coffee run through my  
mac IIfx by a coworker). all the old machines have gone onto second  
and even third lives with others and all were retired due to just  
extreme old age and not to dying... Taught in a multimedia lab at a  
high school for a year and had 40 macs with about a 6 year life range  
and all trooped right along with only a few hard drives pooping out.  
the dell lab down the hall on the other hand always had 3 or 4  
machines laid up and i think 3 of the 25 went back dead in the first  
year up...

I use to just laugh when business folks would huff at the 10-30%  
premium for apples and look at me oddly when i started spouting ROI  
studies and experiences. i guess they slept through that part of biz  
school... I never went myself, but its a lesson i have learned big  
time in 15 years of dealing with scads of computers...

cheers,


Jeffrey Reynolds



On Jan 6, 2008, at 6:09 AM, use-revolution-request at lists.runrev.com  
wrote:

> We use Dell computers at work and DO purchase extended warranties on
> them. They need it. Within 4 years almost all of them >90% of them
> end up using it. The only good thing is that Dell has figured out how
> to have this kind of crappy reliability and but good service (they
> almost never hassle any on-site repair) and still make money.